The Fools' Journey
by The Court Cards
Summary: On a mission, Lavi and Kanda happen upon a band of pirates who turn out to be more interesting than one battle could prove. But, when Innocence gets involved in their little tango, anything might happen. Perhaps, the Order would even find new allies.


**Announcements**

**This is a joint production between four of us. It's -Man, obviously. We hope you enjoy this. The first few chapters should be out within a decent time limit. As always, reviews are appreciated, as it did take a long time to go through the stages of plot formation and character development. **

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She stuck her head out into the breeze, letting it sift its way through her dark hair and cleanse the smell of unwashed laundry that lingered below the deck. The ocean had never seemed so perfect. That salty air was probably the cleanest thing on the ship after a month of aimlessly sailing around, never stopping to supply.

"**TORRRRIIIIIII~!**" And suddenly the heavenly calm was shattered by the weekly routine. The girl smiled bright and turned around, looking across the deck to see a man in black sunglasses shouting energetically. The device in his hand, held up to his lips, amplified the sound, and so his scream was heard throughout the ship.

And GOD knew nobody wanted to hear anything he had to say at four in the morning.

"**TORI~!**" The young man nearly giggled with his own strange, unexplainable obsession. "**Time to get up!!**"

A few muffled shouts came up from the bunks, desiring to strangle the man. "Dammit Captain! Can't we sleep in just this once?!" "Oh lord, not again!" "Huuuuh..." "Shut up!"

But, fortunately enough on the loud man's part, the loudest voice was the one he wanted to hear the very most. "BRAM!! GOD DAMMIT! What the hell is wrong with you?!" The door connecting the inside of the ship to the outside swung open very violently, and the poor thing screeched on its hinges as another girl, with hair a dirt color more than it was truly blond, showed a glower of deep contempt.

But the man, if he did notice her expression, clearly didn't care at all. He bounded up to her and grinned wide enough to reflect the sun. "Good morning, Tori! How are you feeling this glorious, wonderful day?!"

"I was damn fine until you woke me up, moron!" And then the girl, veins pounding on her forehead, reached out and grabbed the man by his collar. "And just what makes any day on this damned ship with you 'wonderful' or 'glorious', huh?!"

It was at that point that the dark haired girl intervened. She waved spasmodically at Tori and caught the grumpy female's attention quickly enough for the poor Captain to get his body back from the grips of wrath. "Hi Tori!!"

"Muh... *Oto mino*, Kiki." She waved back half-heatedly, her killing urge suddenly dwindled beside the unmatched joy emanating from the vessel's only other girl.

"Oh gosh, Tori!" Kiki jumped towards the girl who still had some bed head visible, even with her hair pulled down partly by a long ribbon that ran around her forehead in a silver strand. "You look like you didn't sleep so good! Was it because of last night when I blew up the pickle-barrel? I hope you didn't mind that! I mean, it was empty anyhow, so I figured—"

"No," the other interrupted, not caring how completely rude and cantankerous she sounded. "I didn't sleep well because Bram just woke me up!" She grabbed the bridge of her nose, as if trying to suppress a headache. Another cold glare made its way to Captain Bram.

"Oh, really? Well, I can start making breakfast then!! Since, you know, everybody is up anyway!" The turned and pointed at the door, her braid of beautiful black hair falling over her shoulders, giving light to her skin's gorgeous tan color. Sure enough, the men were crawling out of the darkness, shielding their eyes, and muttering curses at their obnoxiously loud, Tori-obsessed, twit of a captain.

Bram, on the other hand, seemed pleased with his actions, even when he was flat on his ass with another one of Tori's fist-prints on his cheek. The angry blond had drawn all attention to the squabble as soon as Kiki was out of sight and earshot. She stomped down a few times and brandished a knife. "Goddammit Bram!" The majority of the crew, all now awake and excited, massed around the two.

"Oh, hey now, Tori! There's no reason to get all hyper over this!" He waved a hand at her, obviously unconcerned by her violent nature. "You know how these things always seem to end."

She gritted her teeth and a psychotic look seeped into her eyes. Everybody recognized the signal. And though they backed up a few good steps, all of the men quickly took to cheering for their favorite short-tempered tomboy. "Deck him! Deck him!" "Kick his ass, Tori!" "Yeah! You go girl!" "Hit him! HIT HIM!"

Hearing that absolutely nobody was taking his side in the battle, Bram quickly scrambled up to his feet and found he was backed as far away from Tori as he could get. And it wasn't nearly far enough for safety purposes.

"Captain! You better come see this!" One of the crew members was waving the man over to look out at something in the waters.

"Oh thank God," the loudmouth muttered as he was released from the circle of death. Tori, either forgetting her anger or dismissing it temporarily, also walked off to see what the big problem was.

The spotter handed a telescope to the captain. "It's another ship. You know who it is, Captain?"

Bram gazed into the glass for a short while, all eyes on him. "It looks like it's from the Dark Order."

"Dark Order?"

"Yeah. The Pope's holy army, or something like that. They're a nasty piece of work."

"Well, what should—"

Kiki popped up and stole the telescope from Bram's grasp. She squinted through the item. "Hm... Well, if we're going to have company, I'd better make extra food, huh?"

"... I'm pretty sure it's not going to come to that, Kiki."

She waggled her finger and made a "tsk"-ing face. "You can never be too sure!" And with that, she scampered off back to the galley.

Tori examined the vessel as it raced off in the distance. "So, what's the plan, Bram? We gonna rob them?"

He hummed in thought. "These are trained soldiers we're talking about. Even if we have more men, and that's unlikely, we'd be no match."

"Then, we run?"

"If they saw that," he said as he gripped the railing. "They'd board us for sure."

Tori grumbled and crossed her arms. "Well, what then? We just sit here and hope Kiki's spices do them in before they get too close?"

Bram nodded, party to himself. "Just keep on course. We can worry about what to do if they start getting too close."

--

"Yu-chan!" Lavi bounced down from the mast and landed somewhat gracefully next to a rather irritated-looking Kanda. Of course, given the fact that the Samurai didn't get a wink of sleep between having to share his room with Lavi and the continual rocking motion of the boat.

Quite a few people had insisted he call it a "ship" and not a "boat".

Kanda really didn't seem to give a shit what they _wanted_ him to call it.

"Don't call me by my first name!" Kanda shot a nasty look at the redhead. Lavi was completely immune after so many years of overexposure to his companion's temper.

"Aw, hey! Ya shouldn't be all grumpy at a time like this, Yu! It's really nice out here! The fresh air, the vast ocean!"

"Lavi!! GET OVER HERE!"  
"... The angry old Pandas." The boy sighed and turned around to find a very angry Bookman tapping his toes and waving a book. "Naw! Come on Panda! This is practically a vacation!" Lavi moaned fiercely as Bookman shoved the book into his hands, having ignored every word of the complaint.

"You know that 'vacations' are a luxury we can't afford in a time of war, fool!" Bookman, in spite of how very short he was, jumped up and slapped his apprentice. Lavi fell backwards and hit his head on the ground.

And he didn't move.

'Maybe if I'm dead,' he thought, 'I can get out of studying!' The flaw there, however, was that Panda grumbled and pointed at the corner for him while walking by and made a point that if he were to just sit there doing nothing, the red bucket that had been oh-so-lovingly filled with last night's completely inedible slop would be down his throat.

Lavi decided that it was safer to just read.

As Lavi flipped miserably through the book, which was an account of financial history in Europe, he occasionally stole a look over to Kanda.

The samurai was clearly not pleased with something.

Lavi guessed that keeping him up all night by talking about the strangeness of the mission, and eventually somehow moving the conversation on to the overly complicated theory of cupcakes somehow being behind the Earl's master plan, may have been a bad idea.

But hey, it was totally worth it.

"Baka, why are you staring at me?!"

"Hm? Wha? Oh! Sorry! I just got distracted, that's all!"

"Che," Kanda scowled, and then he stared back out at the ocean. "What is that boat up to...?"

"Whatcha talking about, Yu?"

Kanda glared at the one-eyed boy and then shook his head disdainfully, returning his attention to the matter at hand. Lavi took the answer into his own hands, shutting the literature from hell and looking in the very same direction.

"It just looks like any other ship to me..."

"It's been following us."

He was concerned by that, but came up with an excuse quickly enough. "They're probably just headed in the same direction."

Kanda shook his head. "No. They were moving south when they first saw us. They're following us."

Little was in place to argue with that logic. They were heading almost completely west, and there was no way anybody would have changed course so drastically on a whim. Lavi scratched his chin and squinted, trying to get a good look at the flag that floated elegantly in the air. "Hm... I think I recognize the symbol, but I can't be too sure from this far away. Uh... Oh, wait! Now I see it!" He paused and reexamined his conclusion, fearing that he was correct. "Wuh-oh."

"Well?" Kanda folded his arms and awaited Lavi's response. The one-eyed boy rubbed the back of his head quietly.

"Pirates," he said. "And a nasty group too."

Kanda calmly rested a hand on Mugen. The Bookman-in-training looked incredulously at his companion. "Yu! Are you crazy?!"

"Don't use my first name, baka!!"

"Yu, there are a TON of people on that ship. There's no way you'd be able to take them! Not to mention that they're all supposed to be bloodthirsty nut-jobs!"

"Ch," the samurai spat as he walked away, not acknowledging the warning at all.

--

"Oh hell!!" One of the crew pounded his fist against a mast in frustration. "Captain! They're coming this way!"

A short man with huge goggles, the ship's maintenance specialist, thrummed his fingers against the rail uneasily. There's no way we'd hold up right now if they bring out cannons. What do we do, Captain?"

Bram gritted his teeth. "We don't have a choice right now. We're going to have to fight them off until we can escape."

"HELL FUCKING YES!!" Tori pumped her right fist into the air. "Time to crack some skulls, boys!"

There was a roar of fear, excitement, and anticipation from the group. Kiki waltzed over to Tori, still drying her hands from cooking. "We need any explosives? I can handle explosives. I _like_ bombs."

Bram nodded to her. "The more you get the better. It'll be easier to get rid of them, especially if they choose not to board us right away."

The tanned girl clapped her hands and rushed off to find some gunpowder with more pep in her step than a marching band.

"Yo, Bram," the blond called. "You better go hide. This is going to get _messy_." She cracked her neck and grinned ear-to-ear, an almost evil aura enveloping her.

Bram, however, smiled very sheepishly and rushed down the stairs to take cover.

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**Omake 1**

"Oh hell!!" One of the crew pounded his fist against a mast in frustration. "Captain! They're coming this way!"

A short man with huge goggles, the ship's maintenance specialist, thrummed his fingers against the rail uneasily. "There's no way we'd hold up right now if they bring out cannons. What do we do, Captain?"

"Don't worry everybody! I have a plan!" Bram whipped out his megaphone and turned it to full volume, edging as close to the other vessel as he could get. He made his voice annoyingly high pitched. "**We are the pirates who say 'Ni!'! Go away or we shall bombard you with 'Ni's!'!**" On cue, everybody on the boat shouted "Ni".

Kanda rubbed his temples in annoyance. "What the hell is with the fucking Monty Python reference?!"

"**And we want a shrubbery!**"

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**We hope you enjoyed this first installment. Yes, we always seem to have crack ideas for the omake section. Hahaha. **

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